Page 235 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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its associated standards and controls as a starting point for negotiations with developers for wholesale departures from them, but is to respect them as prima facie to be applied unless there is sound justification for departures, which would be expected to be of a marginal and not fundamental nature. Further, the ACT Planning Authority should be told what it should not need to be told - that there will be no confidence in the public consultation process while ever the Planning Authority acts throughout the process as an advocate for the developer rather than as an open-minded authority which respects the objectives and standards adopted in the Territory Plan and associated controls.
The Assembly has a choice. We can allow the variation to proceed. This involves accepting substantial departures from the existing general standards of building height, site coverage, plot ratio and setbacks. It involves accepting a substantial enhancement of what the developer purchased at auction in 1992. It involves accepting that the ACT Planning Authority and the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning are free to negotiate with developers for substantial departures from the Territory Plan and associated standards, and to act during the public consultation process and in their reports to the ACT Executive as a supporter, advocate and facilitator of the resulting proposal.
Alternatively, the Assembly can disallow the variation. This would delay the development of the site, but it would not take away from the developer anything that he bought at auction. It would send to the ACT Planning Authority and the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning the messages I have referred to. Their handling of this matter demonstrates that they need to receive these messages if the Territory Plan and its associated objectives, controls and standards are to be upheld and respected, and if the due processes of the planning legislation, including public consultation in which the public can have confidence, are to be carried out. Madam Speaker, I urge the Assembly to support my motion of disallowance.
MR LAMONT (10.45): I rise to speak against the motion put forward by Ms Szuty, and I do so for a number of reasons. First of all, Ms Szuty has, by either design or default, deliberately misunderstood and misinterpreted the process that has been put in place to adjudicate on whether or not this Legislative Assembly, we the legislature, we the final determinant, if you like, provided for under the Land (Planning and Environment) Act, believe that it is in the public interest to allow a particular development, which has run the gauntlet, I might add - - -
Mr Moore: She does not misunderstand. That is why she is moving disallowance.
MR LAMONT: Mr Moore, you can have your say and you can misconstrue what you want to misconstrue later on. The simple fact is that there has been a considerable process put into place in relation to what should occur on this block of land. The other day, in presenting the variation and the committee's report to this Assembly, I outlined my great concern that the developer and the community at large, as well as the ACT Planning Authority, were required to go through a process where the proponent was originally informed that a tower, consistent with the other two towers that exist in Kingston, would be allowable on that site. Halfway through the process, the National Capital Planning Authority pulled the rug. It was as simple as that; there is no other way
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